As a small business owner Paul Koor can plan his angling around his work, and in recent years he’s learned a lot about fishing the Erie Canal near his home in Rome, New York.
“I’ve spent a lot of time fishing the canal, learning it, and when, where and how to fish it,” said the 39-year-old angler. “A lot of folks don’t know that the best time to fish the canal is late in the afternoon or evening when the ships are done moving through the waterway.”
Koor says he’s caught 21 different fish species from the canal, including smallmouth bass, perch, crappies, pickerel, sunfish, bluegills and more. But late in the afternoon of Saturday July 19, he caught the biggest fish of his life there – at least at that time.
He and his local fishing buddy Robert Holeck launched Koor’s 16-foot Bass Tracker boat into the Erie Canal and started casting for smallmouth bass.
“I put on my new gold-perch colored Megabass Kanata plug,” Koor said. “I was a little hesitant because it cost me $25. But on my first cast I caught a nice pickerel. A few casts later another fish hit my plug like a tank. It never jumped, but it pulled the 15-pound-test braided line against my spinning reel drag.”
Koor believes a bigger pike was chasing his hooked pike, because after Holeck netted it, and Koor inspected it, his pike had its tail freshly raked by another fish that bit it.
“My caught pike was 35 inches long, but I’m convinced a bigger pike about 50 inches long struck at my fish,” he said. “I’ve seen pike that big in the canal.”
But Koor was delighted by catching his 35-inch pike because it was the biggest fish he’d ever caught. He immediately released it, as he does with all fish he lands.
He didn’t weigh it or get a girth measurement for his pike. But several length-to-weight charts for pike show that a 35-incher weighs about 10 pounds.
The anglers went home after catching the big pike, and that night Koor was invited to drive two hours north to fish with his pal John Culjack at North Lake near the tiny town of Atwell.
“John had caught a big tiger muskie the same day I caught my 35-inch pike, so he invited me up to fish for muskies with him that next day,” Koor explained. “It was a sentimental kind of trip, because the lake was the favorite spot John’s sister Ashley liked to fish. Ashley recently passed away, so it was kind of emotional for us to fish the lake for muskies that next day.”
Koor arrived that morning and joined Culjack in his 17-foot Skeeter boat trolling for muskies. Koor used the same rod, reel and Megabass plug he caught his big pike on the previous day. About 3 p.m. he got a strike from a big fish.
“It slammed my plug and made about three or four runs against my reel drag,” Koor said. “It jumped once, but we got it in the boat. It was bigger than my pike I caught on Saturday. The muskie measured 44 inches long, and now is the biggest fish I’ve ever caught!””
Muskie length to weight charts show Koor’s released tiger muskie would have weighed about 25 pounds.
“I’ve got plenty of photos of my fish, and I may take them to a taxidermist and have a replica mount made of that muskie – maybe the pike, too,” Koor said excitedly. “I’ve got lots of photos of fish hanging on my walls, it would be nice to have a replica mount of a big muskie and pike, too.”
